Enrollment hike of 120 students in 4 years doesn't justify building a $97M junior high

The offices of the Hackensack Board of Education and superintendent of schools at 191 Second St.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- When you take a closer look at the proposed $165.1 million building and renovation plan for Hackensack schools, the numbers just don't add up.

A projected enrollment increase and schools that are as much as a century old are the two main reasons cited by school officials to justify the proposal, which will have a tremendous impact on already high property taxes.

Even more troubling is the possibility of holding the referendum on Jan. 22, 2019, when winter weather could discourage many already lazy, apathetic residents from voting to approve or reject the plan.

Past elections

April school board elections usually draw only several hundred people to vote on candidates, and to say "yes" or "no" on the school budget, which accounts for 45% of every home and business owners' property tax bill.

In the April 2017 election, only 3% or 642 of the 21,397 registered voters in Hackensack cast ballots for candidates, and only 341 residents OK'd the $81.2 million tax levy to support a $109 million budget.

This past April 17, when 3 candidates backed by the mayor and City Council ran, turnout was higher -- 1,629 voters cast ballots.

Only 1,142 voted "yes" or "no" on the tax levy, approving the use of $82.8 million in property taxes to support the schools' $117.1 million budget.

Imagine how few would battle January weather to get to the polls and vote in a $165.1 million referendum.

Tax impact

"The tax impact would be decided before the possible January referendum," NorthJersey.com reported on June 30, quoting school board President Lara L. Rodriguez.

Rodriguez also told a reporter that if the referendum passes, it could take up to 8 months for the district to begin the renovations and break ground on the new school and a parking garage, and "we could have the schools open" by September 2021.

Enrollment hike

School officials project they will have to serve 120 more students in 2021-22 than now.

They cite a projected enrollment of 5,834 students in 2021-22, compared to 5,714 in 2017-18.

No mention was made of the 249 students Maywood sends to Hackensack High School, and a possible end to that relationship.

Century old schools

There's no question Hackensack's schools are old and badly in need of renovations and upgrades.

But why did the Board of Education allow them to get that way while raising the school budget every year in the last 10 years -- to where the money spent on schools is now more than the city's own budget?

$165.1M proposal

A new junior high school, with grades 7, 8 and 9, would be built next to the high school at a cost of $97.7 million.

That includes a parking garage for 200 cars to built next to the new school, replacing a high school  parking lot.

Alterations to existing schools would cost about $16.5 million; renovations would cost $17.5 million; upgrades to heating, ventilation and air conditioning would add another $33.4 million -- for a total of $165.1 million.

President Trump is waging a 'war on truth' with help of reporters who spread his lies

With Hurricane Florence bearing down on the Carolinas last week, Dave Granlund, above, and other political cartoonists mocked an insensitive President Trump tossing paper towels to Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria hit the U.S. territory last year.

Jimmy Margulies, onetime cartoonist for The Record of Woodland Park, put Trump in the "Eye of the Storm." The president disputed a study that said 2,975 people died in the 6 months after Maria, and even said Democrats inflated the numbers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Bob Woodward says President Trump is conducting a "war on truth" to discredit the Watergate journalist's book on the chaos inside the White House.

"I've never seen an instance where the president is so detached from the reality of what's going on," Woodward told "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie.

"This is a 'war on truth' by [President Trump]. He said these are unnamed sources [in 'Fear,' Woodward's book]. But these are not unnamed incidents. Specific people on specific dates.

"The incidents are not anonymous," he reiterated. "It gives a date, it gives a time, who participates, most often the president himself and what he says."

Of course, Trump's "war on truth" could just as well describe the tens of thousands of lies he told as a real estate developer, casino operator, presidential candidate and since he took office as president on Jan. 20, 2017.

Sadly, the vast majority of them have been disseminated with no fact-checking by reporters for TV and radio stations in those infuriating sound bites. 

Cartoonist Marian Kamensky also mocked the paper-towel tossing.

Cartoonist Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News shows Trump tossing climate-change science in the toilet along with the study on deaths in Puerto Rico. People who live on the island are U.S. citizens, but can't vote in presidential elections. However, the nearly 500,000 who left between October 2017 and February 2018 to live in Florida, New York and other states can register and can vote in the November congressional elections.

Taxes -- or the lack of them -- are driving everyone crazy from Hackensack to Alaska

One way to interpret "THE LAST FRONTIER" motto on this standard gold Alaska license plate, which I saw on a tourist bus in August, is that the 49th state is the last frontier for an engaged citizenry. A close second is Hackensack, where lazy, apathetic residents rubber stamp higher and higher budgets from the city's Board of Education every year, driving up property tax bills.

Hackensack schools plan to ask

for your vote on $165M proposal

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- You might think long-suffering New Jersey residents, who pay some of the highest taxes in the nation, would be envious of Alaskans.

Residents of the 49th state pay no state income or sales taxes, and Anchorage, with 304,000 residents in 2014, also doesn't have a sales tax.

Recall the hysterical reaction of some New Jersey residents when Governor Murphy sought to raise the state sales tax to 7% from 6.625%.

The Record of Woodland Park, the local daily newspaper, published a front-page story accusing Murphy of trying to raise taxes on the state's hard-pressed "middle class." 

Yearly dividend

Alaskans also get paid every year from the state-managed Permanent Fund, which is fed by oil revenue and now totals close to $65 billion. 

This year, each resident will receive a dividend of $1,600. 

But "democracy suffers when citizens don't pay [taxes]," says Columnist Charles Wohlforth of the Anchorage Daily News.

In his Aug. 10 column, Wohlforth quoted the late Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington:

"The lower the level of taxation, the less reason for the public to demand representation. 'No taxation without representation' was a political demand; 'no representation without taxation' is a political reality."

Are taxes good or bad?

In 2004, Michael Ross of UCLA looked at 113 countries over a 27-year period, Wohlforth said:

"People may dislike taxes, and indeed they loathe paying more while receiving less from their governments," wrote Ross, reminding me of how our local property taxes go up and we receive less from our home-rule officials in Hackensack.

For example, my street hasn't been paved in more than 30 years, and other Hackensack streets are in bad shape.

"Ironically this loathing may be a good thing," Ross said.

"In Alaska," the newspaper columnist said, "we've spawned a political class that learned it can get away with just about anything as long as Alaska Permanent Funds payments keep flowing and broad-based taxes such as income or sales taxes are never put in place.

"They've left us worse off in many ways compared to when we stopped paying taxes in the 1980s -- worse education, more crime, stagnant incomes and, perhaps saddest of all, a pervasive sense of scarcity and collective impotence. We've learned as a society not to expect much."

Alaska also has a 7.1% unemployment rate, the highest in the nation, The New York Times reported in August.

Primitive road network

On our vacation in Alaska, we learned the tax-free state has the highest number of licensed pilots, because a primitive road system means many towns can be reached only by air or ferry.

That includes the state capital, Juneau, so residents cannot quickly and effectively mount a protest against state policies or proposed laws, even if they wanted to.

Alaska, our largest state, is said to be 2.5 times the size of Texas, but only 740,000 people live there -- far fewer than in Bergen County. 

There is no sales tax on meals at Simon & Seafort's and other Anchorage restaurants, where dinner for 2 can easily top $100 before the tip. Try the fine-dining restaurant's Alaskan Cod Rockefeller with Roasted Cod, Halibut, Salmon, Clams and Prawns in a rich tomato broth ($30), below.

Taxes going up?

Now, Hackensack residents are facing the prospect of higher local property taxes, if a referendum on a $165.1 million school building plan is approved.

The city Board of Education is proposing to spend $97.7 million to build a new junior high school on a sports field next to Hackensack High School.

The rest of the money -- $67.4 million -- would pay for alterations, renovations, and heating, ventilation and air conditioning upgrades at existing schools.

No date for the referendum has been set, but the schools superintendent's office says the proposal could go on the ballot as early as Jan. 22, 2019.

341 decided budget

Although school taxes account for 45% of the total tax bill paid by home and business owners, Hackensack voters have shown little interest in school board candidates or the proposed budget, and many may be unaware they can vote down the proposed tax levy.

In the April 2017 election, only 3% of the 21,397 voters registered in Hackensack cast ballots, according to Bergen County Clerk John S. Hogan's office. 

Of those 642 voters, only 341 residents, including those who voted by mail-in ballot, approved the $81.2 million tax levy (to support a $109 million budget).

If the referendum on the proposed $165.1 million school building plan is held in the middle of January, will even 341 people brave the weather to vote on it?

Number of Trump's 'false claims' (or lies) nears 5,000, The Washington Post reports

Cartoonist Dave Granlund lampoons President Trump's reaction to an anonymous opinion piece in The New York Times written by a senior administration official. 

From cartoonist Taylor Jones: Federal Judge Brett Kavanaugh wouldn't be pinned down at his confirmation hearing last week on whether he believes Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling giving women the right to an abortion, is settled law.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail in the run-up to the Nov. 8 congressional elections, and President Trump's lies accelerated over the summer.

Those were only two of the developments in another week packed with news from the White House and the media Trump has been warring with since he took office.

"Buckle up," The Washington Post's Fact Checker said on Friday. "President Trump is on the cusp of making 5,000 false or misleading claims since his inauguration [on Jan. 20, 2017].

"In fact, things have accelerated sharply this summer. In June, 534 claims. In July, 448. In August, 469."

Meanwhile, "in a sprawling, highly anticipated book by Bob Woodward, the White House is depicted as an often-out-of-control operation where former aides stole papers from the president's desk and derided the commander-in-chief," The New York Times said.

In an appearance in California, Obama joined the front lines of the Democratic battle to take back Congress, describing the coming election "as a pivotal moment for a divided nation and a chance 'to restore some sanity to our politics,'" The Times said.

The former president urged Democrats to vote.

Cartoonist Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News portrays Trump as a rabid dog.

Cartoonist Joe Heller of the Green Bay Press-Gazette in Wisconsin shows Trump's reaction to excerpts from the Bob Woodward book and the anonymous op-ed piece in The Times.

In Homer, don't stay or eat here, and a lot of other advice for vacationing in Alaska

THUMBS DOWN: We paid $233.16 for a room with two queen-size beds at the Best Western Bidarka Inn on Sterling Highway in Homer, Alaska, on Aug. 10. I'm not sure why this roadside motel is named after a bidarka, a canoe covered by animal skins like those used by Native Alaskans.

THUMBS DOWN: One of the electric radiators in our room was broken, the beds were much too soft, the floor sloped and the TV remote barely worked.

BEST WESTERN IS WORST CHOICE

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Even if you don't want to fish for halibut, Homer, Alaska, offers a colorful farmers market, a nature center, scenic drives and four volcanoes across the bay.

But if you stay overnight, as we did on our vacation last month, the Best Western Bidarka Inn is far from the best choice.

In fact, the place is little more than a roadside motel with a faux log-cabin exterior and the worst complimentary breakfast I've ever had.

Our room had two electric radiators, but the smaller one in the bathroom didn't work. The two queen beds were much too soft, and the floor between them sloped down toward the wall.

The TV remote barely worked, and buttons had to be pushed two or three times to change a channel or perform another function.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the next day's free buffet breakfast didn't offer cut-up fresh fruit, nuts or raisins for the granola or egg whites for the mediocre made-to-order omelet, and the coffee was dispensed by a machine.

THUMBS UP: The Homer Farmers Market operates on Saturdays and Wednesdays until Sept. 30, and reopens next May.

Eating out in Homer

We drove a rental car 225 miles to Homer from Anchorage, mostly on two-lane roads clogged with motor homes and other recreational vehicles, arriving in early afternoon.

I loved my lunch special of the day at Cosmic Kitchen, a juicy Thai Wild Salmon Slider and Blackened Rockfish Slider, served with Sweet Potato Fries and Coleslaw ($10.25).

But my wife complained her Seafood Ramen Bowl ($14.29), though tasty, had hardly any broth.

The tables were turned at dinner at Pho & Thai Restaurant, where she enjoyed a bowl of Vietnamese Pho Combo ($12.50), but I hated my Pad Thai ($10), which was made with the wrong noodles and overcooked, dry tofu.

I was hoping to order wild Alaskan shrimp, but the restaurant served only low-quality farmed shrimp from Thailand.

We finally agreed over lunch the next day at Happy Face, a Korean-owned restaurant on the 4.5-mile-long Homer Spit with a menu of sushi, fresh seafood, Chinese and Korean food.

I liked my battered-dipped, deep-fried fresh Halibut with French Fries ($19.95), and she loved her stone-bowl Bibimbap, a Korean comfort dish of rice, shredded vegetables and beef, topped with a fried egg (also $19.95). 

THUMBS UP: The deep-fried fresh Halibut at Happy Face Restaurant in Homer, Alaska, called the Halibut Fishing Capital of the World. Gochujang, a Korean red chili paste, was available for the fries.

THUMBS UP: The Dolsot Bibimbap at Happy Face Restaurant was everything this Korean comfort dish is supposed to be and more.

THUMBS DOWN: The spicy cabbage kimchi was some of the best we've ever had, but Happy Face Restaurant charges $4.95 for a small bowl, and doesn't offer seconds at no charge, as does every other Korean restaurant I've patronized in the past 20 years.

HIT AND MISS: I enjoyed this Seared Alaskan Halibut with Warm Crab Salad and Vine-Ripe Heirloom Tomatoes ($41) in the Gold Rush Restaurant at the Denali Park Village Hotel. But my wife found her Red King Crab Legs to be much too salty ($39). With two a la carte salads, a soda and a 15% tip, our dinner totaled $118.50.

Tours and Wi-Fi

Each glass-dome railcar on the Gray Line Alaska tour to Denali National Park from Anchorage has a bartender, tables in front of every seat have brackets to hold your smartphone or tablet, and there are outlets to charge those devices.

But there is no Wi-Fi on any train or tourist bus, so if you try to post on Instagram and other social media or just want to connect to the Internet, it's hit or miss -- mostly miss.

You also won't find any Wi-Fi on board the high-speed catamaran used for the 26 Glacier Cruise with Phillips Cruises & Tours from Whittier, Alaska.

Adults pay $178.95 each, including a light lunch, but if you choose the Salmon Chowder, you'll find it's thickened with too much corn starch. Narration is by the captain and a Chugach National Forest ranger, and you'll definitely need a warm jacket, if you go out on deck to take photos.

We paid another $100 each to take the Alaska Railroad Glacier Discovery Train to Whittier from Anchorage, instead of driving our rental car there, and enjoyed the narration, sightings of Beluga Whales on the return trip and the guide's corny jokes:

"Bear tracks are tracks with no train on them" and "Silent dogwoods have no bark."

In Anchorage, we somehow missed the money saving Alaska Culture Pass, a total of $32 for admission to the Anchorage Museum and Alaska Native Heritage Center, plus a free shuttle that operates 7 days a week from May to September.

Princess Lodges

On our Gray Line tour, we stayed at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge and the Mount McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge, two luxury hotels owned by Princess Cruises, but we found the rooms and food service weren't consistent.

We were supposed to stay at the lodge outside Denali National Park and Preserve for 2 nights, but at the last moment, Gray Line demoted us to the Denali Park Village, a less desirable hotel where the power was out when we arrived and stayed out for more than 2 hours, delaying dinner service in the restaurant.

I called the Denali Princess Lodge and managed to get a large, king-bedded room and bathroom with a walk-in shower for the 2nd night.

The following night, our smaller room at the McKinley lodge had a cramped, motel-like bathroom, with a discolored shower curtain and one of those one-piece plastic makeovers for the bathtub/shower that was starting to chip.

BIG HIT: I've never been a big fan of cauliflower, but one of the best dishes I had on our 15-day vacation was this starter of Roasted Cauliflower with Yogurt, Feta, Mint and Toasted Sesame Seeds ($9) in the North Fork Dining Room of the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge. Our entrees were Crab-Stuffed Halibut with Cheddar Chive Mashed Potatoes ($45) and Short Rib Pappardelle ($28), we drank 3 glasses of red wine and our bill totaled $123.50, including a 20% tip.

BIG MISS: At the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, we paid $17.99 each for an awful buffet breakfast, especially if you don't eat Reindeer Sausage and Hickory Smoked Bacon. No egg whites were available, and premium berries were missing from the fruit salad. For some crazy reason, the breakfast is served in a darkened hall used as a music theater in the evening.

ANOTHER BIG MISS: After that disappointing buffet breakfast at the Denali Princess, we decided  to have an a la carte breakfast the next morning in the North Fork Dining Room of the Mt. McKinley Princess Lodge. But my Smoked Salmon Benedict, above, skimped on the smoked wild salmon lox and the English muffin wasn't even toasted ($14.99).

BIG HIT: If you want to see this caribou and a wide variety of other wildlife in Denali National Park and Preserve, book the Tundra Wilderness Tour, an 8-hour guided bus ride, with frequent stops, that operates from June 1 to Sept. 13 ($173.20 for adults from the Denali Park Village Hotel, including a snack box and water). 

ELUSIVE DENALI: The highest peak in North America, Denali usually has its head in the clouds, but one day we saw the mountain from the deck of the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge -- 43 miles away. Denali's original name was Mt. McKinley.

SPLASHES OF BEAUTY: We saw beautiful wildflowers in Anchorage, above, and just about everywhere else we traveled in Alaska during our vacation Aug. 1-15, including the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge, below. We found seeds to take home to New Jersey at Grizzly's Gifts on Fourth Avenue in Anchorage. 

More hits and misses

I didn't give a second thought to the many guest workers from Eastern Europe, Asia and other parts of the United States we saw working at the Denali Park Village Hotel and the Princess Wilderness Lodges.

After all, foreign guest workers have been a fixture on the Jersey shore for decades.

But when I got home, I read that Alaska, at 7.1%, has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, so why weren't Alaskans hired for these jobs during the 4-month tourist season (May to September)?

Hanan, our server for dinner in the King Salmon Restaurant at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, volunteered she was an Arab-American woman from Florida.

But she spoke almost robotically, and tried to upsell me to a more expensive glass of red wine, claiming it would "pair better" with the food I ordered. 

However, when she agreed to split two entrees, Asiago and Pine Nut Linguine ($25.50) and Sea Salt King Salmon over risotto ($49.50), she didn't mention surcharges I saw on the check later.

About those guest workers. We were told by our American driver-guide on the Tundra Wilderness Tour that a doctor from Bulgaria was washing tour buses for $20 an hour.

His American co-workers said he probably won't be returning next year, but the guest worker said he intends to return, because he was being paid more in Alaska than he is as a doctor in Bulgaria.

$45-plus for wild salmon? 

As someone who eats only seafood, I soon got used to paying more than $40 for a fillet of Halibut or wild King Salmon in a fine-dining restaurant in Alaska, where those fish are caught.

A Connecticut tourist we met on a train suggested that restaurants and other businesses charge as much as they can during the abbreviated, 4-month tourist season.

Unless you're a really big eater, skip Bridge Seafood Restaurant in Anchorage, where entrees are priced higher than at other fine-dining restaurants, because they include a free, all-you-can-eat salad bar.

And don't be surprised when the "signature" or "famous" salmon spread at Bridge Seafood and other restaurants contains 95% cream cheese and hardly tastes of the state's greatest wild fish.

The smoked seafood at Alaska Sausage and Seafood in Anchorage was another disappointment. 

We paid nearly $25 a pound for Kippered Halibut and nearly $24 a pound for smoked Salmon Strips, but I didn't read the ingredients label until I got home, and was shocked to see brown sugar, corn syrup solids, sodium lactate and sodium ascorbate had been added to the fish. 

AT THE RED CHAIR CAFE: The gluten-free Kale Bake Skillet ($15.50) at The Red Chair Cafe included asparagus, cremini mushrooms, grape tomato, zucchini, sliced almonds and a light mustard vinaigrette finished with aged white-cheddar cheese. A sprinkling of ground cumin or crushed red Aleppo pepper over the eggs would have added some needed eye appeal.

ARTISTRY: The Red Chair Cafe is open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays.

Korean food, breakfast

If you're a fan of Korean food, steer clear of VIP Restaurant in a strip mall at 555 W. Northern Lights Boulevard in Anchorage, where we had the worst Soft Tofu Stew ever ($14.49 each).

We liked our Veggie Omelets ($13 each) at the White Spot Cafe, 109 W. 4th Ave. in downtown Anchorage, but the place is so popular we had to sit at the counter and wait about 30 minutes for them.

A better choice for breakfast is The Red Chair Cafe, if only to see the art-filled interior, but here, too, we had long waits for our food, and on two visits, I wasn't able to order the signature Tustumena Smokehouse Salmon Benedict, because they had run out of the "seared salmon bacon" ($15.75). 

On most mornings, we were happy with the free buffet breakfast at our hotel, Hyatt House  in Anchorage -- fruit salad with premium berries; granola topped with slivered almonds, dried raisins and cranberries; an omelet of the day or a made-to-order omelet with or without egg whites; pancakes,  premium teas and more. 

And when we were too tired to go out to dinner, we found some appealing dishes on the bar menu, and washed them down with wine or Alaskan beer on tap.

AT HYATT HOUSE: My wife was very happy with her grass-fed All-American Cheeseburger topped with hardwood-smoked bacon ($13.75) from the H Bar menu at Hyatt House in Anchorage. I chose the Mediterranean Bowl ($12.50), below, an ancient grain and kale blend with pumpkin seeds and an Italian herb vinaigrette, and asked the kitchen to hold the chicken. 

First, the Borgs screwed Hackensack; now, they've turned their backs on sub veterans

The USS Ling, stuck in the muck of the Hackensack River, in April 2016. The wealthy Borg family have washed their hands of saving the World War II submarine from being scrapped or sunk for an artificial reef. Below, the Ling in a photo made today, weeks after vandals flooded the vessel with Hackensack River water.

Editor's note: On Sept. 14, 2019, a group of submarine enthusiasts launched an effort to repair the USS Ling and move the submarine to a proposed naval museum on the Ohio River in Kentucky. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The Borgs are back in Hackensack. 

The onetime owners of The Record are planning to develop nearly 20 acres along River Street -- land they held onto after selling the family publishing company and its many daily and weekly newspapers to Gannett for $39.3 million in cash in July 2016, and laughing all the way to the bank.

But they've washed their hands of the USS Ling, the World War II submarine that has been tied up to their property since 1974 under a $1-year-lease with the New Jersey Naval Museum.

Then-Publisher Stephen A. Borg of Tenafly ended that lease in 2016, claiming the sub wasn't on family property.

A few weeks ago, vandals "cut locks and opened hatches to flood the submarine" with Hackensack River water, The Record reported in a story that was reprinted in the Hackensack Chronicle on Aug. 24.

Reporters Melanie Anzidel and Rodrigo Torrejon made no effort to contact the Borg family for comment about the vandalism or the sub's future.

The damage may be beyond repair, they reported.

Abandoned Hackensack

No one has ever measured the full economic and psychological impact of Stephen Borg's money saving decision to shut down the 150 River St. headquarters of The Record in 2009, and essentially abandon Hackensack, where the once-great local daily newspaper had prospered for more than 110 years.

Most employees were scattered to a Rockaway Township  plant, where The Record and Herald News had been printed since 2006; and to cramped offices in a Garret Mountain office building overlooking Route 80 in Woodland Park. 

Then, Hackensack restaurants like Naturally Good and other businesses on and near Main Street closed, and those that remained open, like Solari's, a onetime Borg favorite, struggled.

The decline in Hackensack news was easy to see, as was the increasing focus on Passaic County and Paterson, even though those stories were of little interest to the majority of readers in Bergen County, one of the wealthiest in New Jersey.

To save money, The Record stopped printing separate Local sections for news from Bergen and Passaic counties, cramming everything into one thin edition.

Downsizing

In 2008, Borg triggered the biggest downsizing in The Record's history, targeting the oldest and highest-paid newsroom and photography employees.

Then, the Borgs delivered the final blow, selling North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, to Gannett, which eventually laid off more than 350 NJMG employees.

See: Gannett admits 

circulation dropped dramatically

See: Borgs take money and run,

 staffers brace for Gannett's ax

See: Editors do their best
 to screw old people

Luxury units

On Aug. 3, the weekly Hackensack Chronicle, which no longer has its own staff, reprinted another story from The Record, reporting the buildings at 150 River St. will be taken down this month.

Employees of the Vannuzzi Group, a demolition and recycling company based in Kinnelon, have been stripping the buildings since late April.

The property, which is in a flood zone, was assessed for $24,947,400, and Macromedia Inc., a Borg family company, has been paying $790,053.40 annually in taxes, according to NJParcels.com.

The project includes 600 luxury residential units -- 100 less than city planners had envisioned -- a public plaza and river walk, and retail along River Street, The Record's story said, quoting a Macromedia spokesman.

Poor editing

The story, by Melanie Anzidel, is an example of how poorly The Record is edited more than 2 years after the Gannett purchase:

"The former headquarters of The Record newspaper ...," the story begins.

But the reporter apparently was worried readers wouldn't know what "former" means, so she added the headquarters were "once housed at 150 River St. in Hackensack."

Here's the lead paragraph in its redundant entirety:

"The former headquarters of The Record newspaper, once housed at 150 River St. in Hackensack, is slated for demolition."

The Ling

Bob Sommer, identified as a Macromedia spokesman, said the New Jersey Naval Museum was "evicted," and agreed to vacate by Aug. 14.

But, Sommer added, the submarine "is not part of the redevelopment project, and its removal, which ... could cost millions, is not part of the eviction," The Record said.

"This was a despicable act," Sommer said of the flooding of the submarine, and the theft of plaques valued at more than $10,000, adding he hopes police make arrests and that the suspects are convicted and punished "to the fullest extent allowed."

3 developers

Macromedia is expected to partner with the Hampshire Real Estate Cos. and Russo Development to build on The Record site.

Jon F. Hanson, chairman of Hampshire, and Malcolm A. Borg of Englewood, former chairman of North Jersey Media Group, are close friends who once co-owned a private jet.

See: The Record's ghosts will be buried

 under new housing